Jimmy Carr: Making People Laugh

Jimmy Carr: Making People Laugh

For some reason I've never really liked Jimmy Carr and this is despite only ever seeing him in short bursts on various TV 'quiz' shows. I've always kept his 'controversial' tag in mind and so kept away from him, never ever seeing one of his very successful stand-up shows. So, I was a little apprehensive about receiving Making People Laugh through my letterbox the other day.

Making People Laugh is Carr's sixth live DVD and was filmed in early 2010 at the SECC Glasgow, otherwise known as the Armadillo - a rather nice venue in all honesty, but filled with Glaswegians - something Carr refers to several times. Carr's style is fine observational comedy but not in the anecdotal mould of so many of his contemporaries, instead his is the more traditional deadpan quick fire jokes, although not so much quick fire as slowly take aim and fire with an innocuous opening line followed by a punchline. And if you're lucky, a second and maybe even third punchline. Another part of his shows are the brave souls who try to heckle him and then put down with withering responses. It seems that this is part of the show and people deliberately come to heckle him in order to be abused, it's a different level of audience participation and one he recognises later, saying it all adds to the show and makes it more inclusive.

Carr is very much an adult comic and his sense of humour crosses many lines that others would fear to tread, with references to rapists and paedophilia scattered throughout his show. Amazingly his audience just can't help but laugh before sometimes audibly drawing themselves back in. It's quite a clever style of delivery and works really well. I have to say that I loved it as well. Some of the jokes are really so wrong that you wouldn't want to repeat them in public or a work setting, but you really can't help but find them funny.

The show lasts for two hours, split into two segments that can be played separately or together. There are some nice extras on this DVD as well. Just for Laughs is a collection of three mini sets from the Montreal Comedy Festival of the same name. Famous people is a collection of jokes about Famous People including the Royal Family but looks like it was part of the same show, so not sure why it wasn't included in the main feature. Meeting And Greeting shows Carr being rather patient and meeting his fans after the show, signing autographs (including writing a marriage proposal for one fan, wonder how that turned out?) and treating them to their own individual abuse/one liners - and they love it, some giving as good as they get. I liked this most I think as it really showed that Carr isn't just after the money and then running, he seems genuinely pleased to meet all these people.

Well, that was a turn up for the books. I started watching this with trepidation and ended up laughing so hard I had a coughing fit, although in fairness I already had the bad cough before I started so that was probably coming either way.

Recommended - and i honestly didn't think I was going to say that...